


A Remorseful Light

by nonbinaryGhost



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Character Death, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:02:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28575699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryGhost/pseuds/nonbinaryGhost
Summary: “I have done many terrible things,” the Pale King rasped. “Things that I should have never allowed to pass. And all for what? My people still died. My Kingdom still fell. My children…sacrificed for nothing. I was too late to do anything to change the course of fate, yet still I struggled to find a way and ended up causing even greater atrocities.”Ghost didn’t move at this. They had expected many things when they found their father, but this had not been one of them. Haughtiness, pride, righteous anger, blind refusal of having done any wrong – Ghost had anticipated that. But not remorse. Not regret.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 74





	A Remorseful Light

**Author's Note:**

> So what would happen if the Pale King was still alive when you find him in the White Palace? This is basically just a collection of random headcanons and dialogue I've been preoccupied with. Please enjoy!

Ghost stood before the fallen kingsmould. They had stumbled across a few of the void-filled armors guarding hidden passages on their trek through the White Palace. But this one was dead – a motionless heap of pale metal leaking void into the stone around it. Ghost glanced around, spying others that were collapsed in a similar fashion. What had happened to them? 

They followed the trail of bodies, their hand on their nail in case any of them were still animated and attacked. But none of the kingsmoulds so much as twitched at the vessel’s passing. The air around Ghost began to grow dark with decaying void as they moved deeper down the hallway towards a Soullift. It was the only way forward, and Ghost was unwilling to turn back, so they pressed on, their footsteps muffled by the thick shadows creeping in. 

More kingsmoulds waited at the top of the lift, as broken and motionless as the others. There was almost none of the pale white light that filled the rest of the palace here. Only heavy darkness and flicking void particles. Even the white stone floor seemed duller, stained into a grey-yellow from the void. A tall dais stood ahead, and Ghost could just make out the shape of something sitting atop it, glowing ever so faintly. Reluctant to enter that familiar darkness, Ghost turned to kneel next to the nearest kingsmould, searching for any signs of damage to their armor. Had there been a fight? Something that had been here before Ghost, that had killed the kingsmoulds to get to whatever it was that sat atop the dais? But there was nothing – no scratches in the pale metal from a nail, no dents or torn joints. It looked as if the kingsmould had simply fallen where it stood, the void that formed its body losing shape to melt into the floor and evaporate into the air. 

“Who passes through this forsaken dream?”

The muffled rasp jerked the vessel’s attention to the large room atop the dais. It had been some time since they’d heard a voice. The soft murmurings of the royal retainers had faded long ago as Ghost pressed deeper and deeper into the heart of the palace, until no other living dreams crossed their path. The heavy darkness that seeped into the air around them seemed to smother the sound, but after so long in silence even the soft voice felt loud. Hand resting on the hilt of their nail, Ghost crept deeper into the large room blanketed in shadow. 

Ghost had been prepared to find their Father in the White Palace. But the sight of the small bug cloaked in faded white robes still made Ghost stop in their tracks. The Pale King was scarcely bigger than Ghost, cloaked in faded white robes atop a tall black throne. For a moment, Ghost wondered if this really was the Pale King of whom they’d seen so many statues. But the crown-like shape of his horns and the pale glow that surrounded his form marked him beyond any doubt as the God-King of Hallownest. The Pale King lifted his head to peer at Ghost now standing before him. 

“Pure -?” The shock on the Pale King’s face faded as he squinted at Ghost. “No, another. So some of you did escape. I had hoped…but never could See…”

The King’s words dissolved into a wet, rattling cough and he buried his face in the crook of an arm as his light flickered. Ghost didn’t budge, their thoughts completely blank as they watched the Pale King regain composure. This was who they had been looking for, but now that they stood before him, Ghost could not summon the will to move. The Pale King looked down at the robe sleeve he had just coughed into with a grimace. He smoothed the sleeve and tucked it out of Ghost’s sight.

“I take it you are here for revenge?” 

Ghost only stared and a rueful chuckle shook the King’s shoulders.

“You do not have to maintain the charade of emptiness, Vessel,” he said softly. “I know you are not hollow, though I cannot sense any thoughts or feelings from you as I do my subjects. The Void shields your mind from my Light. But I know that is not the same as true emptiness. If I had realized sooner…”

His voice had grown tight with some kind of emotion and he took a breath before continuing. 

“You need not hide your feelings from me. I know you must despise me.”

Still Ghost did not move. Instead, they watched how the Pale King seemed to be trembling, ever so slightly, upon his throne. They noted how dim and weak the King’s light appeared, slowly smothered by the encroaching darkness. The King was being forgotten, just as the Radiance had, and he was gradually fading away. Ghost need not do anything, if they actually wanted revenge, for the King was already dying. What greater punishment could anyone hope to enact than to condemn the King to be forgotten and erased along with his kingdom and children? The King let out a shuddering sigh.

“I have done many terrible things,” he rasped. “Things that I should have never allowed to pass. And all for what? My people still died. My Kingdom still fell. My children…sacrificed for nothing. I was too late to do anything to change the course of fate, yet still I struggled to find a way and ended up causing even greater atrocities.” 

Ghost didn’t move at this. They had expected many things when they found their father, but this had not been one of them. Haughtiness, pride, righteous anger, blind refusal of having done any wrong – Ghost had anticipated that. But not remorse. Not regret. 

The familiar, cold emptiness that still filled Ghost’s shell smothered any anger or pity that might have been stirred at the King’s words. Ghost knew they should be furious, but they could not muster up even the phantom flicker of emotion. Factually, they understood that just because this bug knew what he’d done was wrong, that didn’t mean he deserved forgiveness. Least of all from one of the very children he’d callously cast away to die. But Ghost didn’t forgive him, just as they didn’t hate him. The Pale King just… was. He was just another pathetic being fallen from grace, and Ghost felt nothing for him. Ghost distantly wondered if the King’s remorse was less because he knew that he’d caused harm, and more because his plan hadn’t worked. Was his regret more for the fact that his plan had failed rather than for the fact that he had done it at all. If his plan had worked, if the Hollow Knight had successfully contained the Infection and killed the Radiance, would the Pale King still feel the same way? Or would he simply chalk it all up to ‘necessary sacrifices’ and never consider it again?

“I sense my words mean little to you.”

Ghost looked up at this and met the Pale King’s empty eyes. They found that there was some small flicker of rage somewhere inside of their shell – tiny and fragile as a lumifly’s wings. But it was there. Once, Ghost may have listened to the Pale King’s words without bias and could have been moved to sympathy. But Ghost had been to the Abyss, had seen the broken shells of their fallen siblings. Even if they still could not remember their own past there, the cold fury at what had been done to slaughter so many bugs still smoldered somewhere in their very soul. 

“I cannot fault you for your anger,” the Pale King choked, barely smothering a cough that tried to rake through him. “We deserve neither forgiveness nor pity, and We could never ask it of you.”

He barely choked out the words before he could no longer suppress the cough. It tore through his small frame, his whole body shuddering as he clutched at his chest. Ghost watched in rising horror as thick, liquid void began to drip down the King’s chin. Ghost realized that the King wasn’t just fading from memory.

He was being killed.

Slowly and painfully.

Suddenly the heavy darkness that filled the throne room made far more sense. The Pale King’s light wasn’t just fading from being forgotten. The void was smothering the Pale King’s glow and slowly poisoning his body, the very same way the King intended for it to do to the Radiance. But unlike the Radiance, the Pale King lacked the resolve to survive. He felt remorse, now. He had regrets. And the Void latched on to those cracks in his mental barriers with a vicious tenacity that could not be burned away. The Void Sea had claimed him, and it was slowly tearing him apart bit by bit. 

The Pale King’s rattling breath was loud in Ghost’s ears as the coughing fit subsided. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain, dark streaks of void staining his mask around the mouth and eyes, and all four of his arms clutched at the robes around his neck and chest. Only then did Ghost notice that the King’s hands were as void-black as their own shell. Ghost could feel something stirring within them, or, more precisely, within the void that filled their own veins. A sort of anticipation that was not their own. The strange thought that the Pale King would be returning home occurred to them and they pondered the premise briefly. The King was slowly becoming a being of void, and the Void’s song reached out to him now just as it called to Ghost. For the first time, Ghost felt an odd sort of kinship to the dying king. They got the impression that they had gone through something very similar to this, long, long ago. But even these feelings were distant and impersonal – mere phantom impressions of emotion quickly quelled by the cold darkness that filled them.

The Pale King carefully shook his head as his breathing slowed into shallow gasps.

“Why are you here, vessel,” he panted, the sound barely more than a whisper. There was nothing in that voice – just cold emptiness devoid of inflection. Ghost’s mask tilted at this. Why were they here? Then, they remembered the broken charm given to them by the White Lady. They reached into their void-soft body and retrieved the white shard, holding it out to the Pale King. It took a moment for the King to slowly lift his gaze to settle upon the broken charm. He went completely still at the sight of it.

“My Root…” he breathed, reaching out with a single hand towards the charm. He froze, black-stained claws a mere breath away from touching the white surface. Ghost nearly recoiled at the pained sound that escaped the King’s throat - an almost strangled wail that came out as a gurgling sob - and new black tears began to drip down the King’s mask. He took his had away to clutch at his horns as he began to shake, his other hands grabbing at the robes around his throat and chest. 

“My Root,” he choked out in a moan. Ghost stared at this display, uncertain of what to do as the Pale King seemed to collapse in on himself, curled around his arms as he began to sob. The abject misery in the sound would have broken the heart of a normal bug. Ghost only felt cold. 

“I miss Her,” the King wept, the words almost sounding like a confession. Ghost got the sense that the King wasn’t really talking to them. These words felt like the ramblings of a broken bug, spoken for the speaker alone. “I’ve no right to, and yet… I… I wish She was with me. I have been alone for so long… and now… I will never see Her again. She was so sad and angry when She left. She was right to be. And it is all my fault…Will she ever smile again? After all that I have done… have I killed her too?”

The King’s words strangled off into another coughing fit that sounded as if it was ripping the wyrm apart from the inside, and more thick void fell to the black-stained stone floor. The King followed, collapsing to the floor and curling into a tight ball as he convulsed against the stone. The Pale King was still muttering as he choked, but the only words Ghost could make out were “I killed her”. 

Ghost didn’t know how to respond. The White Lady had been alive when they spoke to her. Or did the Pale King mean he killed her in a metaphorical sense? She had locked herself away in her gardens and placed herself under powerful bindings to atone for the part she played in the Pale King’s plan. She diminished her light and restrained her influence. She would eventually be forgotten. Ghost supposed that, in a way, the Pale King had condemned his wife to a slow death not all that different from his own. Her body still lived, but the Pale King had killed her heart, and broken her spirit.   
Just as he’d done to himself.

Without really thinking, Ghost knelt next to where the King had fallen out of his throne and placed a small hand upon his shoulder. The Pale King clutched at their hand with the desperation of a drowning bug. After a time, the King’s breathing slowed once more. The pale glow that had clung to him was all but gone now, flickering faintly like a sputtering candle, and the Kings breath came slow and shallow, as if it took all of his will just to fill his lungs. His gaze found Ghost’s, confusion thick behind the fear that practically radiated from him.

“Why do you stay?” he whispered, each word taking a colossal effort. “You are free… this kingdom is dead…”

Ghost shifted to sit beside the King, moving their clasped hands to their lap. 

The King didn’t deserve forgiveness.

But no one deserved to die alone. 

Ghost resolved to stay here beside the King in his final moments. 

A gift he had never given to his kingdom. Or his children.


End file.
